MLB Bullets Has The Blues Again

Happy Friday.

• The logjam in the free agent outfielders is finally starting to break as the Royals have agreed to re-sign Alex Gordon to a four-year, $72 million deal, which seems like a significant hometown discount, unless the free agent market really has dried up a lot more than we thought.
• Cliff Corcoran evaluates this team-friendly deal and says re-signing Gordon was crucial as the Royals have a small window in which to compete before their current team becomes too expensive for the team to keep after 2017.
• Matthew LaMar explains what the Gordon signing means for the current state of the Royals.
• I really try to avoid dumb comments by politicians, but this one is just too stupid to ignore. Kansas governor Sam Brownback praised Kansas's low taxes as one incentive for Gordon to stay with the Royals. Of course, you'd think the governor of Kansas would know that the Royals play baseball and pay taxes in Missouri. But apparently not.
• I don't know if the signing of Gordon led to this, but the Giants signed their third big free agent of the winter by inking Denard Span to a three-year, $31 million deal.
• David Schoenfield thinks that Span is a perfect signing for San Francisco. Assuming he's healthy, of course.
• Span has previously stated that he has a phobia of birds and fish. Grant Brisbee thinks this won't be a problem at AT&T Park. I'd think he wasn't being serious here, but I've never known Grant to joke about something like this.
• The next outfielder domino to fall may by Gerardo Parra, and word is that the Rockies are making a strong push to sign Parra.
• Jorge L. Ortiz looks where the best fits for the remaining unsigned free agents.
• The Orioles are still hoping that Chris Davis accept their previous seven-year, $150 million offer. Considering what Gordon got, Davis probably should accept it.
• We've already mentioned the results of the Hall of Fame voting and you know doubt already know that Ken Griffey Jr. and Mike Piazza were elected. Grant Brisbee has the good, the bad and the ugly from the voting results.
• Jayson Stark has five lessons from the voting results.
• Ken Rosenthal says that we shouldn't be fooled by the increased vote percentages for Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens. The two PED-tainted superstars are no closer to Cooperstown than they were last year, Rosenthal claims.
• Griffey will wear a Mariners cap on his plaque and Piazza will wear a Mets cap. Defensible, but Piazza really should have gone in as a Marlin.
• There has been an on-line movement for Griffey's plaque to have his cap on backwards. Surprisingly, the Hall didn't completely dismiss this outright, but I'm sure it's not going to happen.
• Here's what such a plaque might look like.
• Terence Moore has a great story about the first article he (or anyone else) ever wrote predicting greatness for Griffey: in 1978 when the Kid really was only 8 years old.
• Tim Kurkjian looks at next year's Hall of Fame ballot. Just Manny being Manny. Unless Theo lets him take an AB sometime this year. I'm pretty sure he's never officially retired.
• Rob Neyer looks at who might get inducted in the years ahead.
• Dave Cameron looks ahead to Mike Trout's future induction and notes that Trout is much better than Griffey this point in their careers. In fact, Cameron argues that Trout is one more season away from equalling the entire career of Hall of Famer Kirby Puckett.
• David Schoenfield asks if Trout retires today, does he have enough to go into Cooperstown?
• A look at the best players ever on a Hall of Fame ballot who failed to get a single vote.
• MLB named Curtis Pride as their new "Ambassador for Inclusion." The previous holder of that job, Billy Bean, has been promoted to Vice President, Social Responsibility and Inclusion.
• Jule DiCaro conditionally praises MLB's procedures for dealing with incidents of domestic violence. I say "conditionally" because DiCaro, like pretty much everyone else, wants to see how the three cases currently before the panel play out.
• Commissioner Rob Manfred talks about technology and baseball with NBA commissioner Adam Silver at the Consumer Electronics Show.
• And MLB announced a deal to live stream games in China.
• Anthony Castrovince calls the Cleveland Indians front office from 1998 as the baseball executive "Dream Team."
• Brayan Peña talks about his decision to leave Cuba via a bathroom window and what it meant for him to return this past month. A must-read, really.
• Michael McCann assesses the chances that Ryan Zimmerman and Ryan Howard succeed in their defamation suit against Al-Jazeera America. (Hint: They're not good.)
• And finally, Chris Archer got ahold of commissioner Manfred's law school yearbook picture and published it on the internet. Really, he should have saved it for the next time he was facing a suspension. Then we could all say "He must have incriminating pictures of the commissioner" and Archer could just smirk and say "Why yes I do!"

And tomorrow will be a better day than today, Buster.